The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down one of the nation's toughest restrictions on abortion, a Texas law that women's groups said would have forced more than three-quarters of the state's clinics to shut down.

The decision was 5-3.

Passed in 2013, the law said clinics providing abortion services must meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centers. And it required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

Since the law was passed, the number of clinics providing abortion services in Texas dropped to 19 from 42. Opponents said that number would fall to ten if the Supreme Court upheld the law.

The Center for Reproductive Rights called the law "an absolute sham," arguing that abortion patients rarely require hospitalization and that many patients simply take two pills.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer in writing the majority opinion said "neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes. Each places a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a pre-viability abortion, each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access, and each violates the Federal Constitution."

I still don't understand how anyone could, with a straight face, say that this law was supposed to protect a woman's health. Seriously? What it did was force women who wanted abortions into shady clinics, clinics that were 200+ miles away, or to attempt to do it themselves.

IndependentProfessor wrote:I still don't understand how anyone could, with a straight face, say that this law was supposed to protect a woman's health. Seriously? What it did was force women who wanted abortions into shady clinics, clinics that were 200+ miles away, or to attempt to do it themselves.

well no, it made sure the clinics weren't shady. yes, a couple hours drive away, sure, but it did not create shady clinics

Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience. -- Theodore Roosevelt

IndependentProfessor wrote:I still don't understand how anyone could, with a straight face, say that this law was supposed to protect a woman's health. Seriously? What it did was force women who wanted abortions into shady clinics, clinics that were 200+ miles away, or to attempt to do it themselves.

well no, it made sure the clinics weren't shady. yes, a couple hours drive away, sure, but it did not create shady clinics

...it eliminated clinics altogether by being cost-prohibitive through regulations and constant revisions thereof. This forced/forces women to seek clinics further away (as they become less prominent) or to, as others have noted, perform the clothes hanger option in a dark alley.

It's a classic case of over-regulation creating a sort of black market. Isn't this supposed to be your forte?

Stephen Jay Gould wrote:When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

John Galt wrote:well no, it made sure the clinics weren't shady. yes, a couple hours drive away, sure, but it did not create shady clinics

No, it did not. The whole point of the law was to try and make abortions illegal by shutting down all of the clinics. It had nothing at all to do with women's health. In fact, Ruth Bader Ginsberg caught the Texas Solicitor General on it:

Seconds after Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller began to speak Wednesday morning, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg zeroed in on the “undue burden” question—quickly and mercilessly knocking Keller off balance and setting the tone for the rest of his nearly 40 minutes at the lectern. Ginsburg asked Keller how many women would live 100 miles or more from a clinic if the Texas law went into effect. About 25 percent, he responded—but that didn’t include the clinic in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, just over the border from El Paso. The existence of this clinic featured heavily in the 5th Circuit’s decision to uphold the Texas statute; it asserted that the law did not impose on “undue burden” on abortion-seeking El Paso women, because they could simply cross state lines for the procedure.

“That’s odd that you point to the New Mexico facility,” Ginsburg said, in a clear and firm voice. New Mexico, after all, doesn’t force abortion clinics to meet the same standards that Texas would—standards which, Texas claims, are absolutely critical to protect women.

“So if your argument is right,” Ginsburg continued, “then New Mexico is not an available way out for Texas, because Texas says: To protect our women, we need these things. But send them off to New Mexico,” to clinics with more lenient standards, “and that’s perfectly all right.”

“Well,” Ginsburg concluded, with just a hint of pique in her voice, “If that’s all right for the women in the El Paso area, why isn’t it right for the rest of the women in Texas?”

This exchange was Keller’s first of the morning, and Ginsburg delivered a knockout punch. She very efficiently revealed the inconsistency at the heart of Texas’ argument. The state vows that its new standards—which include minimum sizes for hallways, doorways, and ventilation systems—are essential to protecting women’s health. But when confronted with the fact that these standards are so onerous and expensive that they will shutter many clinics, Texas shrugs and suggests women drive to another state without those ostensibly crucial standards. And in an impressive display of chutzpah, the state even relies on the continued existence of New Mexico’s clinics to defend the constitutionality of its own law.

Over the following excruciating 40 minutes, the liberals took turns brutally hammering Keller about the true justification and motivation for Texas’ law. (Why single out abortion when other procedures, like colonoscopies, pose an exponentially higher safety risk? Is there any proof that clinics were unsafe before the enactment of the new rules?)

I normally don't quote Slate.com but I feel this highlights the point very well.

Its ridiculous to think women's health was ever the goal. That was the line they used to push the legislature through and make it not look like they were trying to place an undue burden on women, but it was exactly the point. Doctors from nearly every related field said time and time again that HB2 did not actually do anything to ensure women's safety and that the regulations put in place by it were completely unnecessary.

IndependentProfessor wrote:I still don't understand how anyone could, with a straight face, say that this law was supposed to protect a woman's health. Seriously? What it did was force women who wanted abortions into shady clinics, clinics that were 200+ miles away, or to attempt to do it themselves.

well no, it made sure the clinics weren't shady. yes, a couple hours drive away, sure, but it did not create shady clinics

...it eliminated clinics altogether by being cost-prohibitive through regulations and constant revisions thereof. This forced/forces women to seek clinics further away (as they become less prominent) or to, as others have noted, perform the clothes hanger option in a dark alley.

It's a classic case of over-regulation creating a sort of black market. Isn't this supposed to be your forte?

With Galt, you can't read into what he says beyond what he actually says. His post, as I'm sure he'll point out, is factually correct.